Next to You (Life) (13 page)

Chapter 24

Talk soon
, I’m
grinding my teeth as I arrive at my house. She couldn’t even compose a complete sentence. When I park, I notice there are three trucks outside Buddy’s townhome, two are furniture store trucks and the other is one of my construction trucks. I had no idea he decided to move in. Not that he needs to tell me, it just surprises me that the move happened at all. The night club will open soon, and he opted to rent an apartment close to it—at least he said that a week ago. Like a good neighbor and brother, I head to his place. The first person I spot is the dude who lives across the street. A twenty some year old guy who works for some IT company, as I approach he stiffens and gives me a head bob while carrying a box inside Buddy’s. I wonder what his problem is, but I ignore him.

When I enter the house, I spot a petite woman in the open kitchen putting away dishes inside the cupboards. It doesn’t take long for my dick to announce we have a problem, it’s the ass. That perfect tight round ass of hers and the way it continues down those toned legs. Capri yoga pants, plus any top…
my favorite outfit
. Instead of talking to her, I head toward the construction truck that’s open and grab one of the few boxes left. The driver nods when he sees me.

“So you got the baking pans in the settlement,” I mention as I approach the kitchen and read Mary’s handwriting. “No wonder I had to buy new ones.”

“Is that some kind of joke I should laugh at, and why are you here?” She turns around and stares at me, crossing her arms. “No really, I want to know. Knowing Buddy, I can only guess that you’re that friend who owns the town home. First he gives me your dog, then your home, what’s next… your company? If you don’t maim him, I will.”

“I live two houses down from here.”

“Bike guy?” she questions and rolls her eyes. “Of course you are, there can’t be two men who’ll spend that kind of money on a vehicle… or hundreds of them.”

“This is the last box, where do you want it, Becca?” friendly neighbor asks and I stare at him because this is my territory.

“The kitchen table is fine, thank you for—“

“Helping her,” I interrupt Becca. “You can go. I’ll take it from here. Are the movers installing the furniture?” She nods and I head upstairs, but not before looking at the backyard where Rusty is lying on the grass chewing some kind of bone.

The first room I check is the master bedroom where the movers are setting up the nightstands next to the already assembled full size bed. I walk to the second room and find an office and the third has a set of twin beds. When the movers finish with her bedroom I follow them downstairs after closing the door. There are another couple of men setting up the dining table when we reach the main floor and Becca continues unwrapping the kitchen boxes.

“Done micromanaging and feeling all manly?” She turns around and I cross my arms after I hear that comment, giving her a stern look. “Dan, you barged into my house without saying hello and kicked out the nice guy—”

“Who was staring at your ass,” I add and let her continue.

She looks over her shoulder and looks at her gorgeous behind, then shakes her head.

“There’s not much to stare at.” She straightens her posture. “Now about you being here, why?”

“There’s plenty to look at, Princess.” I smirk and wink at her, as a result, her face blushes with that pretty light red I love. Surely it’s hard for her to understand, but for some unknown reason I hate that nosy neighbor got a good show.
Calm down Brightmore,
I remind myself that this might set me back to that macho persona she loathes. “I came to help Buddy, well I thought he was the one moving in. Seems like he decided to rent out the place after all. Why here?”

“It’s less congested than San Fran,” she answers. “Ty’s still close by and after Buddy showed me the place I decided this could be a long term commitment. If it’s a problem…”

Should I say something like, no, I like to have you here or be honest about what I’m thinking and say your place or mine; because it’s been a long dry period for me and those pants and that tank top are getting me hard.

“You’re staring, Daniel.” She crosses her arms pushing those pretty tits high and making me lose my mind. “And not at my face.” She uncrosses her arms and snaps her fingers. “Daniel, eyes up here.” Clenching her jaw doesn’t take the hotness out of the scene, no actually I want her to clench those lips right,
stop Brightmore.

“Are you still on the market for a one night stand?” I ask, she growls and suddenly a kitchen towel flies my way. “Because, baby, I’m—.”

“Get out of my house,” she screams. “What is wrong with you? We’re barely speaking to each other and you’re propositioning me as if I am one of your sluts.”

I leave because my little brain is the one commanding my mouth and soon my actions are going to push this woman to the edge and no doubt she’ll use those freshly unpacked kitchen knives on me. I’ve no idea what took over me, no I do, her and her lazy Sunday-exercise outfit that usually temps my self-control. We might not be friends, an item or anything in between, but one thing is clear; I’m fucking branded by her and my body responds to hers with only being a mile from it. This is not healthy, as she lives so close and I don’t plan to head out and seek just any available body to take the lust away the way I used to. I stare at my hand.
It’s going to be you and me for a while.

*

As I’m checking the resumes we received for the position of social workers in Boston, there’s a knock on my door. When I look up, I find Becca standing in the doorway with her long brown locks flowing around the navy blue dress she’s wearing. I remind myself to keep this professional when I notice the skirt is mid-thigh length.

Professional,
I repeat one more time
.

“You called?” I tilt my head to the chair in front of my desk. So far last week’s dumb episode hasn’t come back to bite me, but she avoided me until after the weekend. “That’s a big pile, are there any good ones?”

I push the ones I separated that I think might help and continue screening the one I hold.

“No, no, no.” I place a hand on top of the last one she rejected. She hasn’t read through it yet to disregard it. “They are too old and have already worked several years with the government. I need fresh meat, those that still believe in the dream. Not like the idiot you hired to help Steve.” Steve’s temporary assistant, when Becca’s mom was on her deathbed, had great credentials and had worked for child protective services in New York for more than twenty years. “He made cuts in the Foundation. His neglecting procedures cost me one child, a heartache and several man hours to fix his mistakes, Daniel.” Clearly she’s still upset about the man, holding a grudge is so unlike her, but I refuse to bring that up at the moment. Professional I remind myself. “We have the money to pay for the services others can’t, that’s why our institution is different from others. Even if the trust fund of the Foundation disappears—which it wouldn’t—you’ll foot the bill. Hiring one of those social workers that would rather not look into the issue will be worse than not having one at all. Come on, Daniel, surely you came across one of those types.”

“Yes we did,” I respond without thinking twice. “Bud and I got lucky that way.”

Becca shakes her head, and I’m almost sure she’s wanting to call me Dr. Sarcasm but I ignore her and continue.

“Now that I’m older though, I understand what went wrong with them. In no way do I absolve them for their irresponsibility, but recognize that the adult world has traps, policies and inefficiency that we as children don’t see or deserve. Also I want to believe not everyone within the system is corrupt and there are some out there looking out for those children thrown their way. Is it possible that most of them were like you when they started, huge believers of saving those children? Perhaps they were and it was the lack of response from their supervisors that took away their optimistic glasses. The raw reality burned their eyes leaving them blind to see what happens to the children under their care. Let’s not forget why you decided to major in social services…the Foundation. Before we—mainly you—came up with the idea of saving the world, you were going to do early childhood education. To tell you the truth, I don’t think you’d have been able to work in the government without having your big heart crushed on a daily basis. At the Foundation you do whatever you want to help others and as you mentioned earlier, there are no limits. While in the government it’s the opposite.

“You know where they sent me. We lived there for several years and I tried my best to stay out of trouble.” I take a deep breath. “One time, I spoke with my social worker about our conditions. There were things I didn’t like. The men, I noticed, touched the older boys and I feared I would be next. Whatever she said or did only awarded me a beating. Afterwards they told me my turn would come soon as well as Joseph’s.”

“That’s all that happened after you reported them?” Becca asks with a calm voice but widen eyes and I nod. “That’s kind of what I fear will happen with any of these kids. What did you do?”

“We escaped the next day. The south shelter we own, was my home for about a year. We survived and tried our best to keep ourselves out of trouble. Plenty of things happened between the age of twelve and fourteen. Among them, Raj found us and introduced us to the Swansons. There was the time when we confronted one of our foster roomies who had joined a gang. We got ourselves into a deadly fight—someone died and two survived… there is more, but those are stories I rather not tell.”

Becca stares at me, there’s moisture in those beautiful eyes, but she’s not crying.

“I understand your point, Bex,” I say as I’m between chiding myself for giving away too much and hoping she doesn’t start the waterworks because of my shitty past. Breaking the eye contact we suddenly have going on, I send an email to HR requesting a new batch of resumes with different specifications. “Are you going to the opening of Buddy’s new club?”

“Nice, I see what you did there, smooth change, Dan.” She points at me with her index finger and then her temple. “Smart. I might, it depends on how tired I feel that night, since I’m babysitting Mattie and Angie during the day. Ty and Ash are preoccupied trying to… you know, well you don’t; but they’ll be busy.” She smirks, and I’m enjoying this small civilized conversation, so much that when she raises up from her chair, I want to beg her to stay for another minute or two, or for the rest of her life. Well, no, not that long. Thinking twice, I convince myself that it’s just the habit of having Becca around. “Thank you for showing me the resumes, talk to you soon, Dan.”

Chapter 25

B
laine Frank disembarks
the elevator, just as I board it. He nods and says nothing. I thought he’d be working on site today, and my gut tells me he’s coming from the sixth floor and didn’t visit my office. I hate this feeling of jealousy. He has a thing for Becca, I’d have to be blind not to notice the way he looks at her. My hands curl into fists and the childish wish that Rusty peed on his shoe, again, crosses my mind. That should teach him to stay away from Becca. Fuck, I’m behaving like a green-eyed boyfriend, when I’m not even a friend of hers. Aside from a couple of work related meetings, the most intimate moments we’ve shared have happened in the break room, when we both wanted to use the espresso machine.

“Oh no, please, you use the espresso machine first. I’ll be back later,” both of us say and leave the break room. As a rule, I wait between thirty minutes to an hour for her to evacuate the premises. I’ve no doubt she does the same, because we both observe the same fucked up pattern. What happened to Becca preparing my cappuccino, or the other way around? Why don’t I prepare her a hot chocolate with extra foam? That fucking elephant she described is getting huge and one of these days we’ll have to move to a new building so the animal has room to grow.

The rage that clenches my insides, including my head and perhaps my heart takes me on a detour to Becca’s office, where I find her kneeling next to a chair, with a roll of paper towels and two different cleaners. One logo portrays a sadden beagle on top of a carpet. Seeing Rusty inside his playpen with a puppy pout and her ranting, softness my anger.

“We don’t pee on our guests, Rusty. What kind of behavior is this?” When Rusty spots me, he wags his tail, as if I should praise his behavior. Which I would, if Becca wouldn’t chide me right along with him. From the sounds of this and Blaine’s earlier sour puss face, I deduce my dog knows how to behave and keep away undesirable male attention. The female in front of us doesn’t appreciate that behavior though. “If you continue like this, I’ll have to keep you at home. Why don’t you pee on Daniel? Now that’s something I would enjoy.”

“Really?” The veins in my head threaten to explode in between twitches. Rusty, don’t touch Lego boy, but please go ahead with Daniel? What the hell? “You don’t want your boyfriend to stink? But Rusty has your permission to do whatever he wants to me?”

“My what?” she squeaks and her gaze direction changes from the floor to my face. Becca challenges me with those beautiful brown eyes. “You mister are out of line. For starters, he’s a stranger—Blaine. I owe him two pairs of shoes.” Becca glares at me. “Second, he looks at my dog as if he’s Beelzebub reincarnated. Not a comforting thing while he’s holding a hammer, and installing my heavy bookcases.” She goes back to the task at hand. “And above all, you wouldn’t care if Rusty did it—at least you wouldn’t make a huge deal out of it. Quite the contrary, you’d help me clean and wouldn’t look at my baby with knives ready to create a Korean dish, would you? Plus, I’m not happy with you at the moment. So it would close the circle with vengeance. Also, you wouldn’t be a snob about it. That man needs to chill, take that stick out of his ass and enjoy life.”

“What did I do now?” I ask, instead of agreeing with her argument about Blaine and the stick in his ass. She lifts both shoulders and then slumps them down with a big huff. I skim her serious face, since those big brown eyes are otherwise busy attending the carpet. I can’t even try to read them. I guess that is for the best, it takes me to the edge not being able to read her as well as I used to. “Are you going to tell me?”

“Blond boy.”

“Tony?” She nods. “What’s with him, should I fire him?”

“Yes.” Becca looks up at me. “Well, no, I mean why is he guarding my butt? I’m a grown woman who doesn’t need a babysitter.”
Tony needs to learn how to blend in, damn it.
“We’re over, take your people back. That and my car, my car.
My
.
Car
. You killed it, five years—almost six of working and saving went down the toilet. What is wrong with you?”

“Who told you?”

“Does it matter, Dan?” She pushes herself off the floor and places her hands on her hips. “Pieces here and there, I didn’t want to believe them. Some make sense, others…drunk driving? Connor, you had no right to take Ryan away from him, Dan. That’s not right, he loves his Dad. That little boy didn’t do a thing to you. How will you feel if a drunk idiot takes away your kid because he’s mad?”

“I—“

“Yes, I agree, Connor made a mistake, but think about Ryan for one minute.” Her hands fall to the sides. “His Mom isn’t as nurturing as Connor, I did listen to that when he talked to me. You know what’s worse, Dan, those things that you used as outlets to let the anger flow didn’t do a thing. The anger stayed with you and in the end, you pushed me away with it. It’s not that I care about the car or all those things you burnt with it, the material things don’t matter. The intention of why you did it and the meaning behind each and every item you disposed of, including that crystal tulip you gave me, is what crushed me.”

“How do—?”

“I finished unpacking and when I called Betsy and Mary to ask about the rest of my belongings; they said that was it.” She purses her lips and rolls her eyes. “Forget it, let’s agree to disagree here.”

“You know, that statement doesn’t make sense at all.” We aren’t fighting and that ticks me off. “What’s there to disagree about, Becca, when you won’t talk to me? Those fucking manners won’t let you give me shit about anything you claim I did.” She growls but I don’t let her interrupt. “Using a soft girly voice only makes me think you moved on and I’m the only one still in limbo.” Becca gawks, then bites her lower lip. Her glance is a combination of astonishment and exasperation. But then again I could be wrong, it’s been so long since I have been able to read her. “Or maybe not. You might be seething underneath that soft armor, pissed at me but you won’t even yell at me for what I did or confront me. The martyr act is old, I’m fucking tired of it.” She glances severely at me for a moment, but says nothing. “Why do I have to be the one that has to fight for us all the time? If back then, you gave a shit about our relationship, you’d have done something. Worse, you came back the same way you left—without a word. What is it now, pay for your mistakes and let me go?”

“No.” She takes a deep breath, with a steady voice and continues speaking, “The best battle is the one you fight controlling the situation, Dan. I understand that you lost your temper, but I disagree with the way you handled the situation—the outlets.” Then she points at herself. “This is who I am, Dan, and you know it. We met years ago, Becca Trent doesn’t scream. There’s no point to match your tone of voice, is there? You used to get that about me. Fighting rage with rage will only bring hurt to both and that is not my style. Pain isn’t my thing, you know that. Right now you’re choosing to be this person that is either flirting as if I were a piece of meat or trying to pick a fight. I have to respect this stage, or new persona.”

Her posture remains neutral, not one muscle is tense. Becca’s beautiful face matches her eyes, they are soft and there’s not one worried line. The only one here searing is me. I thought she said that she was upset at me, where’s the fire, the passion, the exchange of words because…we don’t, we always talk things out. That’s the real Becca way—our way. Not losing her temper, crying for everything, screaming or… shit, when did this happen. Suddenly it hits me. She’s really not that crazy girl anymore.
Fuck, what now?

“Dan, you separated a son from a father, and drove drunk. The consequences of the latter could’ve been devastating. The first has a boy crying more often than not, I know because Connor and I talk or email often.” I’ve known that, but I don’t tell her. “And don’t you dare do something against him because I’ll have Nate punch you in the face.” She twists her mouth lightly. “Then there’s that part where you keep looking at my departure as a mistake, which it wasn’t. No matter how many times I tell you how sorry I am for hurting you, or any way I say it, you refuse to listen, or forgive me—or both. That’s something I have to respect. After we broke up, I realized that I survived the loss. Though, a part of my soul and my heart died that day. Now it’s time for both of us to move on.” The last part isn’t as steady but she continues, “However, our lives can’t go in opposite ways. Not a hundred percent. Your best friend is my stepbrother, your brothers are my family too.” She takes a step forward, lifts a hand and when she notices that she’s about to touch me, she stops herself. “There’s Rusty, who neither one of us wants to relinquish to the other. Civilized, that’s the only way we’ll survive the rest of our lives, Dan. Again, I’m deeply sorry that I hurt you, that’s the last thing I wanted to do.

“This is too much.” She shakes her head. “Don’t you have some country to take over or a billion dollars to make?”

“The thing I hate and can’t get past Rebecca,” I take a step forward and cup her chin with one hand, “is that you didn’t keep your promise.”

“I didn’t say yes, Dan,” she responds, knowing what I referred to. “Sometimes I think you’d have rather come home and found me dead than… forget it. This is a step back and I won’t allow myself to be that person. Not again. If anyone needs me, tell them to reach me on my cell phone.”

Becca takes her eyes from mine and walks to her desk where she begins to tidy it. After settling everything, packing her things and putting a leash on Rusty she heads toward the door.

“Do I still get Rusty on Saturday?” I ask, thinking I lost the only connection we had after my poor behavior.

“Whatever.”

Though I want to scream something like: ‘very mature or look who’s talking‘, I eat my temper and head to my office; where I should’ve been in the first place.